The non Legacy episode this month.
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YESSSS IT’S THE BOY! I don’t know if I’m gonna care about Skeleton Key ever again, but for now? I’m here for him, 100% 
Hmm, so a two-word phrase…
I’m glad that The Letters Page exists as a place I can go to learn little-known facts about how the world works! 
YES HE DID THE THING XD
I’m so disappointed his name isn’t stupider. This is made up for, however, with all the extremely stupid explanations for where his powers come from. XD
I mean, it sounds to me more that he studied the ancient art of Kung Fwee.
He’s weak to doors and chairs? What is, a character on Critical Role?
I wonder if, coming into this episode, they expected to use the phrase “fwee fwee fwee” at all, let alone more than once.
Okay, public sentiment turning against heroes is one of my least favorite superhero plots, but this is a really great setup for it if nothing else.
Oh yeah, the revelation that Skeleton Key is who’s being revived on Rites of Resurrection is what started this whole thing, isn’t it?
Gee, it’s a good thing he had the ability to unlock things, only having the power to kill yourself would not make for good supervillainy.
Yeah, I don’t think we did know the ancient foes thing, so that’s neat. 
This whole thing was way more interesting (and convoluted!) than it had any right to be. Who knew the death and return of Skeleton Key would lead to the death and return of Mr. Fixer? Super happy with this issue.
Spite is absolutely a lot of capicollo, yes.
They’re absolutely right about Keyblades, and I am very pleased by this.
Yeah, making bad stories actually compelling is one of their greatest failings. :V
“The Dreamcast of comic books” ohh, oof, ouch D:
Hey now, I have a water-controlling radical 90’s superhero who uses a surfboard! >:V As a weapon, but still.
“Chris and Tommy”? That was a choice.
Me??? Yeah, no, Adam’s right, the 90’s were not 30 years ago. I like Sky-Scraper as an answer though!
I think it’s possibly the case that Hammer and Anvil looked vaguely like metaverse C&A and then their appearances were tweaked ever so slightly to pay homage to said creators later on.
Oh heck, there IS a dragon silhouette on the cover, I never even noticed! Yet another mind-blower from Adam!
Darn, I wish they’d said something about the creative processes before I sent a topic in! DX
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We didn’t. We know that Fixer’s master was deliberately named as a reference to Journey to the West, but nothing more.
Which, of course, led me to think about who would fill which role from that story. Assuming that Fixer/Mantra becomes Tripitaka and Zhu Long is like… the Bull Demon King? Maybe. So looking at the rest of Dark Watch, I’m guessing Expat is Sandy and Harpy/Pinion is Pigsy. Then that would make the memory of Nightmist is Guan Yin, and by process of elimination (and his role as the goofball badass), Setback is Sun Wukong.
Monkey King Setback variant?
See, my question from this is, was Fixer able to restore the memory blocks before his death? Or was his resurrection by Zhu Long fulfill exactly what the old lizard wanted?
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Yeah, same here 
Would have saved my submission for another month in that case (not like they ever make it into voting anyway :D)
Also does anyone else feel like pre-resurrected Skeleton Key was much more fun than the way more gritty later one? 
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Okay, good! When they started talking about that like it was just normal stuff, I was boggled, and I felt much better when Christopher said “oh wait, maybe we’ve never talked about this before”.
My guess is that Fixer’s resurrection didn’t particularly end up helping Zhu Long because Zhu Long immediately lost control of him, but maybe he did get the secrets out first. I assume that either way, they were unlocked, because this story is listed as the beginning of events that culminate in that resurrection.
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Yeah, I’m thinking that he wasn’t too broken up when he lost his ghost-zombie-ninja. He already had what he wanted. The question, then, is whether Mantra still knows whatever secrets Fixer needed to forget.
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oh, for sure, but this is also a fun and decade-fitting twist on the character I’m sure there’s ways to keep using him afterward that aren’t completely edgelordy.
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I’m sure that after the 90s passed, some writer came up with a non-edgy way for him to get power without causing serious injury to people, and that was inconsistently used depending on the tone of whatever he appeared in.
Plus anything in Rook City is the one place this makes sense, as the Chairman intentionally manipulates everyone to produce that result added to how Wraith is definitely one of the more vigilante-flavored vigilantes.
I admit all I could think about was that whole exchange on Red vs Blue about whether something is a sword or a key, and Caboose is like maybe it’s a key all the time, and when you stick it in people it unlocks their death.
Eh, I wouldn’t worry about it too much. I think of topic submissions as more like slots, where you get 12 slots a year. So might as well throw it into the topic pool versus wasting a slot, with holiday suggestions being the only real place timing hugely matters.
Zhu Long ruins everything–typically on purpose–that seems to be a consistent pattern with him thus far.
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I can see a writer making an offhand note that part of his payment for villainous jobs is ‘enough life-force to do the job.’ Not necessarily lethally, just a little bit of power to make it work without any impact on Skelly.
You could even make it interesting and have it interact with other superpowers in fun ways - I imagine he could get a LOT of juice out of Re-Volt, for example.
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Or with Haka, for that matter…
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Honestly, good point. If nothing else, it’s there in the deck!
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Here’s where I think pogs appeared in comics. There’s a “talking heads” scene among the Freedom Five, nothing interesting going on, just 6 panels of exposition. But in the background, Unity is playing pogs with Champion Bot.
Frame 1: Unity sets up the game, while Champion Bot watches.
Frame 2: Unity takes a shot.
Frame 3: Unity cheers her successful shot.
Frame 4: Unity hands a slammer to Champion Bot.
Frame 5: Champion Bot throws the slammer clear through the floor.
Frame 6: Unity tries to hide the damage.
There were later story elements that indicated that Zhu Long’s animosity was based around Zhu Long being a nemesis of Shuen Zhang.
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I was relistening to the episode and was reminded that I felt terribly amused by the whole fireworks discussion. As I live in the one, sole state in the US (MA) where it is illegal both to buy or sell any type of firework whatsoever * unless you have a license and permit. And yes, it’s enforced.
Every so often there’s noise about lifting the ban, but the various emergency agencies always argue it’d be too big a threat to safety, with the injuries and property damage that occur from what number of people try to smuggle in illegal fireworks honestly tending to make this argument seem not terribly unreasonable.
* There is quite a few states which restrict what kind of firework you can buy, but we’re the one state that bans them all.
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